Graphical glitch in Word and Outlook (Office 365)

[wheresmycar]

There might be a very promising fix I didn't think of in the beginning but one in our Reddit thread did:

Assigning specific cores via

• Start OneNote / Word / Outlook (using OneNote in this example)
• Windows Taskmanager => "Details" tab
• Right clicking "ONENOTE.EXE" selecting "Set Affinity"
• Assigning one or a few cores (0,1,2,4) and confirm

Doing this all my glitching goes away instantly. I will do further tests during the next days.

I really hope you can reproduce this, very curious!

SAVED!

When the glitches reappear i will definitely give this a shot.

Interested to see if Chris's ongoing issues are resolved with this core assigning method.

Can you direct us to the reddit page so we can get a better grasp of what is being discussed around the issue of maximum assigned cores with MS applications.

 

[FSx3]

Here's the direct link to the users post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/zfg62e/_/jgqawdj
I'm very curious how many cores of my 13900k I can assign until it starts glitching again. Will report back here once I found out more.
But most importantly this "fix" instantly works and is reproducible.

 

[maciux]

This fix/workaround seems to be working. Lately, Word was glitching for me almost constantly, but now the glitches are mostly gone.

However, I’ve assigned one core and writing isn’t as fluid as before - there’s a stutter. I will try using 2 cores now on my 12700K.

Also, you have to assign cores every time the program starts, but glitches are driving me insane, so I will gladly do that.

 

[Mussels]

There might be a very promising fix I didn't think of in the beginning but one in our Reddit thread did:

Assigning specific cores via

• Start OneNote / Word / Outlook (using OneNote in this example)
• Windows Taskmanager => "Details" tab
• Right clicking "ONENOTE.EXE" selecting "Set Affinity"
• Assigning one or a few cores (0,1,2,4) and confirm

Doing this all my glitching goes away instantly. I will do further tests during the next days.

I really hope you can reproduce this, very curious!

That's incredibly weird

Like it's relying on the CPU to do something with the rendering, but when it moves to an SMT thread? it suddenly can't do it?

Here's the direct link to the users post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/zfg62e/_/jgqawdj
I'm very curious how many cores of my 13900k I can assign until it starts glitching again. Will report back here once I found out more.
But most importantly this "fix" instantly works and is reproducible.

Do you have that feature where you can disable the E-cores with pressing scroll lock or whatever it was they did in the early days with E-core issues?

I'd be curious if you disable SMT and E-cores, see if the issues gone and what combo brings it back (SMT, E-cores, specific number of CPU threads/cores total etc)

Also, you have to assign cores every time the program starts, but glitches are driving me insane, so I will gladly do that.

process lasso is a program that can automate it, i think it's paid however



The reddit thread covers that it only happens when the GPU is idling, and that 3D load/higher clocks solves the issue for them too.
That's an odd one, but may be a red herring. Kind reminds me of issues with Vsync/Gsync in a way, too
These settings have a chance of being related since they're universal, don't recall if they've been mentioned here already - the IGP's that have no issues (and older drivers) may not support these features, and therefore not expose the issue

That last one is meant to be for games, but could totally be triggering on 2D office applications and screwing with things if they and the drivers are miscommunicating

Googling that last option had an MS dev commenting on a reddit thread when it was introduced
The content typed explains that the type of Vsync used could result in tearing or buffer related issues - have people tried forcing Vsync on/Off *for the affected apps specifically* in NVCP and AMD's software?

That also reminds me of what happens in edge when pages are translated - i'll type something and it'll suddenly reverse the words or letters in a word and spew it out backwards


Are you guys running US english and US as the region? I could see something in windows meant to correct/adjust languages being at fault here, since that would be universal through all these microsoft/UWP applications

 

[pavle]

I wonder if it would help to set a new nvidia control panel profile and for word.exe and such programs set Vsync to off or adaptive, because it looks to me the application doesn't refresh/re-draw screen properly after some parts get "dirty".

 

[Mussels]

I wonder if it would help to set a new nvidia control panel profile and for word.exe and such programs set Vsync to off or adaptive, because it looks to me the application doesn't refresh/re-draw screen properly after some parts get "dirty". View attachment 292761

That's what i meant above

There are various options that might help, and any that do could be clues to wtf is going on - since this happens on AMD and Nvidia but not onboard graphics, it seems like it's a feature of the more powerful or modern GPU's going wrong - so the windows related options might be part of it

Is it cleartype, font or language choices?
Pretty sure we already had people checking into DPI scaling
Then i'd be looking at displays and what could possibly be in common between Nvidia and AMD, but also different between older and newer drivers and IGP drivers - are they running RGB, 8/10 bit, or 4:2:0/limited dynamic range over HDMI connections? Is it those new windows features?

Some nvidia and AMD settings in the generic profiles could totally mess with an office program, if they assume its a game

Naming some Nvidia ones:
Forced anti aliasing/AF settings
Low latency mode
Power management mode (Someone did say that higher GPU clocks was a workaround for them - full clocks all the time is terrible, but when office is opened is an okay temp fix except for laptops)
Vertical sync
Background application max frame rate (If this is set to 30FPS on a 165Hz display, i could see something going weird there - especially on a VRR display)

Found something on the issue from 2021, might be related?

Text glitches, vanishes, reappears while typing - Microsoft Community

See Stefan Blom's answer in the thread at https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/disappearing-text-in-word. In summary, it's a bug that Microsoft knows about, and a temporary workaround is to turn off the "Widow and orphan" option in the paragraph settings.

This is also a fitting example of what it could be, but doesnt explain why some situations remove the problem - that it's related to cloud-syncing of the documents somehow

That one should be easy to rule out - go offline and see if anything changes

Theres an april 10 fix for 'text predictions' that could also be having a seizure (and cloud related)
Text predictions unexpectedly become unavailable and are missing in Outlook options - Microsoft Support



And a new post on reddit thinking the same as us:

 

[Dirt Chip]

I have that glitch in word with office 2019.
Anyway, watching to see if there a fix.

 

[OdysseusCM]

I can confirm that the workaround described in the screenshot above - adding the Office apps as game in the Radeon Software and enabling Anti-Lag - fixed the problem for me as well.
That's a temporary solution I can live with.

 

[Pbryanw]

A new member here, but have been following this thread with interest. I'm happy to write that the Anti-Lag fix that @OdysseusCM outlined in their post above, has also fixed this issue on my PC. It's also the only solution that's worked for me so far. Who knew that Excel was so sensitive to lag? Anyway, just to add, I'm running an AMD 6800 GPU on Windows 11 Pro 22H2.

 

[tabascosauz]

And a new post on reddit thinking the same as us:
View attachment 292834

I can't say for sure if I had it on for the previous GPUs since it's been a while since I had the 3070 Ti, but after checking, I currently keep Reflex on Ultra in global settings NVCP so that it should apply to Office as well. Could be a promising start, since nothing else seems to have worked consistently.

 

[Squidmo]

Hi everyone. Been following this on here for months. NOTHING everyone was suggesting worked for me. (MSI Radeon RX 6750 XT Mech GPU).

Then I tried the "add the app as a game and turn on the Anti-Lag" suggestion from @Mussels in this thread, and I see a very slight blink when using the MS Office apps. But that's it. No more odd characters, weird juxtapositions of content and window panes and all that weird crap.

I can live with the slight blink.

Thanks guys. I hope this works for others on here dealing with this pain in the ass as well.

 

[fray_bentos]

I don't have GeForce Experience installed, but I do have Nvidia control panel, so I did the following things (I'm not sure that all of them are needed), but this is now fixed and working for me:

1. In Nvidia control panel, I added Word and Outlook as separate programs to my "Manage 3D settings" under the "Program Settings" tab and for both I set the following:

2. "Low latency mode" = Ultra.

3. "power management mode = Nvidia recommended

4. "preferred refresh rate = highest available.

5. "vertical sync" = on

I restarted Word and Outlook and the disappearing characters are gone!

 

[justtosaythankyou]

I just came here to say thank you... this solved a glitch which bugs my eyes since 3 years!!! thanks!!!

 

[Nico76]

Addition for AMD users trying to use the Anti-Lag workaround:

There was one more weird thing I had to do ...

After adding each respective Office Programm as "game", I (re-)started the respective program, went to the Adrenalin settings page and had to toggle "Anti-Lag" off and back on!
Until I did this, the setting did not show any effect. After that everything kept working across program and computer restarts.

See here for my original post regarding the issue:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/zfg62e/_/jk9y543
Thanks for the hint with the Anti-Lag setting!

Hi everyone. Been following this on here for months. NOTHING everyone was suggesting worked for me. (MSI Radeon RX 6750 XT Mech GPU).

Then I tried the "add the app as a game and turn on the Anti-Lag" suggestion from @Mussels in this thread, and I see a very slight blink when using the MS Office apps. But that's it. No more odd characters, weird juxtapositions of content and window panes and all that weird crap.

I can live with the slight blink.

Thanks guys. I hope this works for others on here dealing with this pain in the ass as well.

View attachment 294330

 

[FSx3]

After 5 months I finally found the root cause and solution for this problem and it's 100% reproducible. Let me explain.

# The solution

Windows 11 power profile which disallows CPU Core Parking

• Approach a) Install freeware tool "ParkControl" (Link) and disable Core Parking
• Approach b) Install freeware tool "Process Lasso" (Link) and activate its power profile "Bitsum Highest Performance" (which has Core Parking disabled implemented)
• Approach c) Manually edit the existing Windows power profile via PowerCfg.exe (explanation further below on Link)

Check if core parking is disabled via

• a) Windows Task Manager "Performance tab" > "Logical CPU view" > hover mouse over each CPU core > no core parking displayed > success!
• b) ParkControl / Process Lasso: CPU load graphs showing no parked cores

Being that simple to implement one can easily reproduce the solution working by switching power profiles.


# The root cause

• A proper solution has to be found and implemented by Microsoft as only their Office 365 applications cannot handle CPU core parking with modern multi core CPUs (and GPUs?).
• I still don't understand why the glitching never happens running on iGPU. Something must be problematic in regards to latency when running Office 365 on dGPUs.
• Very early we found that having some GPU load led to no glitching in Office 365. I guess that this is due tue to increased CPU load which then leads to less CPU parking.
• Also we suspected the GPU memory clocking / energy saving as the root cause which might not be the case.
• Some users report that activating GPU anti lag features (AMD Readeon Anti-Lag / Nvidia Low Latency Mode Ultra) solved their glitching but for me running these configs wasn't enough.

# The big latency surprise

• Since running Windows 11 with CPU core parking disabled and Process Lasso on top (ProBalance + Performance Mode enabled, no further custom configuration) my Windows 11 systems run much more snappy and fluidly.
• The difference is rather mind blowing and can also be measured with tools like LatencyMon.

# Further notes

• I always thought that the Windows "Ultimate Power" plan would switch off all CPU energy saving features including core parking which isn't the case on my machines. These options are also hidden in the config UI until the user implements changes via PowerCfg.exe.
• Running with CPU core parking disabled doesn't really increase my systems total power consumption significantly
• I will post my findings in all existing threads regarding this Office 365 glitching
  • Microsoft feedback portal thread 1
  • Microsoft feedback portal thread 2
  • Reddit Thread 1
  • Reddit Thread 2
  • Reddit Thread 3
  • Nvidia forum thread

# Current system configuration

• Windows version: Windows 11 Pro x64, 22H2 Build 22621.1702 (General availability channel)
• Office version: Microsoft Office 365 x64, Version 2304 Build 16.0.16327.20200 (Current channel)
• Nvidia driver: Game Ready-driver @ v531.79
• Hardware: Intel 13900K @stock, Asus Maximus Z690 Hero @bios 2204, Nvidia RTX 4090 @stock, Asus ROG Swift PG35V Gsync screen

I hope this will also work on your systems! Please let us know

 

[pilarius]

Just registered because of this annoying graphical bug..

Disabling parking of CPU cores sadly does not work for me. I tried everything in this thread. The only suitable workaround for me is adding the office apps as a game and turning on anti-lag.
On integrated GPU I don't have any glitches. No glitches appear when CPU/GPU load is midrange or high.

My system:
CPU: 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-13600K
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, Driver version 31.0.14051.5006
Windows: Windows 11 Pro 22H2 (re-installed, but made no difference)
Office: Microsoft 365
Mainboard: Gigabyte Z790 Gaming X AX

Just wanted to let you know.. Thanks to everybody doing research on this topic!

 

[FSx3]

@pilarius Oh that's unfortunate! I really hoped that the CPU core parking is the ultimate solution which apparently it isn't. At least the AMD Anti-Lag works for you. I really hope Microsoft will look into this incredible bug at some point... (asap! )

 

[maciux]

@FSx3 Thank you! I turned off core parking immediately and my Word is glitch-free since. I'm using 12700K and RTX 3080.

 

[FSx3]

@maciux Awesome! Thanks for your feedback, maybe the Core Parking = off solution only works for Intel+Nvidia combos. We'll keep watching.

 

[Gunjindude]

I don't have GeForce Experience installed, but I do have Nvidia control panel, so I did the following things (I'm not sure that all of them are needed), but this is now fixed and working for me:

1. In Nvidia control panel, I added Word and Outlook as separate programs to my "Manage 3D settings" under the "Program Settings" tab and for both I set the following:

2. "Low latency mode" = Ultra.

3. "power management mode = Nvidia recommended

4. "preferred refresh rate = highest available.

5. "vertical sync" = on

I restarted Word and Outlook and the disappearing characters are gone!

I found this works for me (so far). However 2 important things to remember are to make sure that you have closed Word and Outlook when you make these changes in the Nvidia panel (the settings will revert to their default if you don't) and also remember to hit Apply or they won't save!

 

[Mussels]

I've got suspicions this may be tied into Multi Plane Overlay support, after learning about it and its limitations.
It's been long enough i don't recall if it was mentioned in this thread before now.

What's got me interested is that SpecialK listed my display has 4 planes as the maximum - and only on one of them.
I'm wondering if going over that limit somehow is what's causing this glitch, or something like having office on two displays at the same time - one with MPO, one without.

MPO only works on your primary monitor, and only works with 8 bit colour.
It's poorly documented at best, and most of my information comes from reddit posts about when it's working properly.

Perfect example of what it's meant to do

That comment about the windows volume overlay destroying FPS sounds similar to this bug, where a certain visual action triggers the background activity to spaz out momentarily.


It's the sort of thing users do not know if it's active or not and may have active AND inactive at the same time with multiple monitors.
It may be broken by having too many 3D accelerated programs open at once (Overlays, browsers, discord, etc)
This may explain why people had it working on an internal laptop display but glitching on their secondary.

Can someone with the issue test how it behaves in a dual monitor setup and/or compare with 8/10 bit colour modes on and off? Mostly to see if MPO disabled or enabled behaves better.
It make take logging in and out of your windows account/restarting the system for changes to take effect. I've linked a registry file to force it off at the bottom of the post.

(This is from the program Special K, it's designed for tweaking graphics drivers in real time - it's not something you want on a critical work PC but overall it's safe to use)

And the tooltip showing the driver capabilities that it enables when i'm on 8 bit

I can absolutely see it being on or off being a potential trigger for the issue, as the feature involves the ability to treat windowed applications as exclusive fullscreen, and the ability to discard old frames - perhaps office is doing something stupid like rendering internally that copies the previous frame, and a discarded frame results in an empty window momentarily, that gets filled with whatevers nearby


Nvidia has registry files here you can trust for safety that disable and enable MPO, for a global way to confirm on/off and how it works for you.
If you have a setup that works on display and not the other, it'd be good to find out the differences between them - and MPO might be it.

After updating to NVIDIA Game Ready Driver 461.09 or newer, some desktop apps may flicker or stutter when resizing the window on some PC configurations | NVIDIA (custhelp.com)

 

[VDB]

The month of June has arrived. And the 'Moment 3' update for Windows 11 is now available. The update contains a great many bug fixes and a number of new features. But STILL... no mention of this disastrous bug! For users of Windows 10/11 and a dGPU, Microsoft Office remains unusable for the basic task of editing text.

I just called Microsoft again, and once again the representative had no clue about this issue. Apparently, Microsoft STILL has zero awareness of this sad situation, which continues after nine long and painful months!

There have been posts on this forum containing workarounds. I would like to comment on four of them.

1) Placing a load on the GPU. This can be done with programs like FurMark and OCCT. The load must be created every time you run an Office program, which is a major pain the neck. And doing so is clearly not a good idea, since it can lead to system instability as well as heat and other related issues. Furthermore, this only works intermittently, depending on the amount of load and other factors. Not an ultimate solution.

2) Setting the CPU affinity to use only one core. Performing this adjustment every time you run an Office program is a significant hassle. There exists a way to create a program shortcut that establishes this adjustment by default, but this only works when running Word from a shortcut. Since Word is often run by double-clicking a .docx file, this shortcut is useless. Also, this adjustment only works marginally well and only on some configurations. Furthermore, it can cause sluggish performance, system errors when multi-tasking, and even Blue Screens. Not an ultimate solution.

3) Adding Office programs as games and setting the GPU driver for 'low latency = ultra' or 'anti-lag = enabled'. This only works partially and only with certain drivers. When it works, it still allows for some glitching, although the amount may be greatly reduced. It can also lead to program instability and errors, as well as other strange behaviors (although apparently not Blue Screens). Not an ultimate solution.

4) Disallowing CPU core parking. This adjustment does not get rid of glitching entirely, although on some systems it can make glitches rare. This adjustment can also lead to Blue Screens in certain scenarios, as documented on the Bitsum ParkControl website. Not an ultimate solution.

(Combining any of these workarounds at the same time can result in greater effectiveness, as well as greater instability.)

So... even though these temporary workarounds prove helpful to varying degrees, the following point bears emphasis: They are NO SUBSTITUTE for Microsoft actually becoming aware of this bug and fixing it!

Therefore, I continue to request if anyone on this forum has any constructive ideas as to what can be done to make Microsoft aware of this enduring bug, please post. Thank you.

 

[Mussels]

The month of June has arrived. And the 'Moment 3' update for Windows 11 is now available. The update contains a great many bug fixes and a number of new features. But STILL... no mention of this disastrous bug! For users of Windows 10/11 and a dGPU, Microsoft Office remains unusable for the basic task of editing text.

I just called Microsoft again, and once again the representative had no clue about this issue. Apparently, Microsoft STILL has zero awareness of this sad situation, which continues after nine long and painful months!

There have been posts on this forum containing workarounds. I would like to comment on four of them.

1) Placing a load on the GPU. This can be done with programs like FurMark and OCCT. The load must be created every time you run an Office program, which is a major pain the neck. And doing so is clearly not a good idea, since it can lead to system instability as well as heat and other related issues. Furthermore, this only works intermittently, depending on the amount of load and other factors. Not an ultimate solution.

2) Setting the CPU affinity to use only one core. Performing this adjustment every time you run an Office program is a significant hassle. There exists a way to create a program shortcut that establishes this adjustment by default, but this only works when running Word from a shortcut. Since Word is often run by double-clicking a .docx file, this shortcut is useless. Also, this adjustment only works marginally well and only on some configurations. Furthermore, it can cause sluggish performance, system errors when multi-tasking, and even Blue Screens. Not an ultimate solution.

3) Adding Office programs as games and setting the GPU driver for 'low latency = ultra' or 'anti-lag = enabled'. This only works partially and only with certain drivers. When it works, it still allows for some glitching, although the amount may be greatly reduced. It can also lead to program instability and errors, as well as other strange behaviors (although apparently not Blue Screens). Not an ultimate solution.

4) Disallowing CPU core parking. This adjustment does not get rid of glitching entirely, although on some systems it can make glitches rare. This adjustment can also lead to Blue Screens in certain scenarios, as documented on the Bitsum ParkControl website. Not an ultimate solution.

(Combining any of these workarounds at the same time can result in greater effectiveness, as well as greater instability.)

So... even though these temporary workarounds prove helpful to varying degrees, the following point bears emphasis: They are NO SUBSTITUTE for Microsoft actually becoming aware of this bug and fixing it!

Therefore, I continue to request if anyone on this forum has any constructive ideas as to what can be done to make Microsoft aware of this enduring bug, please post. Thank you.

Could you try/test the MPO registry files linked above?

Otherwise the only way is their feedback hub, that actually seems to get attention

 

[CommanderZoomie]

Try this!

Good morning everyone,

I would like to offer my solution regarding this plague of an issue without you having to do anything crazy.

Please reply, like, and share this information if this has helped you.
Pass on the knowledge, just remember how long it had annoyed you.

Please note that I am running my Display Port 1.4 cable directly from the GPU to my monitor.
My specs are below, however, my quick fix is:

• right click desktop >
  • go to display settings
    • advanced display
      • choose a refresh rate
        • select 60hz (or the closest option that it lets you select, for example: 59.99hz).

I run my games in 360hz of course, but it's worth shooting down to 60hz when working / typing.

My Specifications:

• Monitor = ROG Swift 360Hz PG259QN (scale = 100%, display resolution = 1920 x 1080)
• CPU = Intel i9 13900k
• Cooling = Custom loop
• Mobo =Z690 Aorus Ultra
• Ram =128gb ddr5 Corsair Dominator Platinum 5600mhz
• GPU = RTX 3080 TI Aorus Extreme
• PSU = EVGA 1300G2 (1300w 80plus Gold)
• Storage = x4
  • 1tb PNY XLR8 CS3140
  • 1tb Samsung 980 Pro
  • 2tb WD Blue
  • 14tb Seagate BarraCuda Pro

 

[OdysseusCM]

I would like to offer my solution regarding this plague of an issue without you having to do anything crazy.

right click desktop >

• go to display settings
  • advanced display
    • choose a refresh rate
      • select 60hz (or the closest option that it lets you select, for example: 59.99hz).

I run my games in 360hz of course, but it's worth shooting down to 60hz when working / typing.

Since I have a 60 Hz monitor this isn't much of a fix for me as this setting is always on 60 Hz. Only thing working reliably in my case is the "Anti-Lag" option for Office Apps (as games) from the Radeon Software.